I do not spend much time thinking about politics at this point in my life. Therefore I have little to say that is very important or interesting, though I take a passing casual interest. The map above is very curious. Donald Trump did not simply ride on a wave of expected gains. He changed the map. Yes, he was solid in core Republican regions (except Mormon America), but he really gained in more “purple” areas of the Midwest and Middle Atlantic. Trump crushed it in West Virginia and lost Virginia. That would be very peculiar in the 1990s. More relevantly, the Driftless went for Trump, despite being the most prominent area of rural white America outside New England to support Obama in 2008 and 2012 (the area also favored Democrats in 2000 and 2004). In the near future, when I have more time, I will be looking at the county-level data.

Second, the exit polls are interesting. One has to be careful here with these sorts of results, but it does not look as if Trump lost with minorities and gained with whites nearly as much as the press would have you believe. Granted, disaggregation is important here. Trump lost among wealthier and more educated whites, but made up for it with the downscale. Anyone trying to sell a simple story is probably taking you for a ride.

There are many stories here. Though you can probably go elsewhere for most of them. I plan on focusing on science and history, which I find more fascinating than politics.